U.S. robots win at RoboCup

Monday, October 24, 2016 - 01:25

University of Texas at Austin wins the RoboCup challenge soccer final at Beijing's World Robot Conference. Roselle Chen reports.

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U.S. and Australian robots battled it out at the final soccer match of the RoboCup Challenge in Beijing.
It was down to the University of Texas at Austin's (UT Austin) Austin Villa, and the University of New South Wales's (UNSW) Runswift with the final score 7-3, UT Austin's win.
SOUNDBITE: Katie Genter, Austin Villa team captain, saying (English):
"Well, we won as planned, but Runswift is a strong team. They had some issues at the beginning of the game, so they didn't play very well the first half, but at the second half they came out really strong."
SOUNDBITE: Jeremy Collette, Runswift team member, saying (English):
"When we went out there, firstly one of our robots just died, and wouldn't turn on. You know, we couldn't even believe our luck, right at the grand final. So we've been using that robot for three or four days straight, and just before the finals it stops. And then we had another problem with another robot, so, which is kind of like a perfect storm for us."
SOUNDBITE: Josiah Hanna, Austin Villa team member, saying (English):
"The robots are telling each other, like where they believe the ball is, where they believe that they are on the field, if they've fallen down or not, and then they're also to decide who goes for the ball. They bid on its position, they bid on like how likely they are to think that they can get to it fastest."
The robots are virtually autonomous, although referees are able to monitor which robots are connected to a wireless network and team members can decide if they need to replace the robots or not.
RoboCup, an annual international robotics competition, was founded in 1997.

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